


Peace Be with You

by orphan_account



Series: Season 14 Codas [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s14e10 Nihilism, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Season/Series 14, Season/Series 14 Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 12:00:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17467136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "You can't lie to me, Dean Winchester. I know the shape of your pain."





	Peace Be with You

Dean staggers on his way into the bathroom but refrains from flipping the light switch; he’s been treating his new condition as the world’s most epic hangover, and if years (and years and years and _years_ ) of heavy drinking have taught him anything, it’s that hangover headaches don’t take kindly to bright lights.

Half blind in the dark, Dean fumbles through the medicine cabinet for a couple of minutes before coming up triumphant with a bottle of prescription strength Motrin. Praying that the pills haven’t expired since the last time he read the label, he shakes out twice the recommended dose and swallows them dry, throat clicking painfully as they go down. He rests there for a minute, elbows braced on the countertop and head hanging heavy on his neck. Christ, but he needs a drink. He’s _going_ to get a drink, actually, right the fuck now.

Dean doesn’t reach over to touch the light switch, but the lights come on anyway, harsh and buzzing and fluorescent, cutting into his retinas as keenly as any blade. His head comes up so fast it spins, like there wasn’t already _enough_ going on in there, and he bites out a rasping “ _Fuck_.”

The lights go out as quickly as they came on, and Dean’s still blinking away the afterimages when Cas says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

There was a time when Cas wouldn’t have even considered apologizing for scaring the bejesus out of Dean, so Dean supposes he should appreciate the thought, but he’s in a justifiably bad mood, and he snaps, “You’re _sorry_? I think you fucking blinded me, Christ.”

In the dark, Dean sees Pamela’s face, sees her blank white eyes sitting like plastic marbles in her head, and wishes he’d said _literally anything else_  but that.

Cas doesn’t move from his spot by the doorway. Doesn’t say anything else, either, which is super helpful.

Dean clears his dry throat and thinks longingly of a cold beer. No, not beer. He drew beers for Sam and Cas in that little lotus eater machine Michael set up in his head, but then, he was doing shots of whiskey, too. Jesus. Has Michael ruined _alcoholism_ for him too, now? Son of a bitch.

“Thought you were keeping Jack company tonight,” Dean says, putting all the new ways in which he’s been broken aside for now. For as long as he conceivably can, actually.

“I was,” Cas says, “but now I’m not.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Dean says, too harsh. He has to remember that Cas’s been put through the ringer too, getting the ever-loving shit beat out of him by Michael and following that up with sifting through the muck that makes up Dean’s brain. “You should be with him right now, not me. He needs you.”

“He does,” Cas allows, and his outline grows larger as he ventures closer. His wide shoulders are a shadowed slope in the dim light coming in from the hallway. “But so do you.”

Dean shuts his eyes.

“Cas,” he says, and he was gonna follow that up with something profound, but he just. Can’t right now.

Cas’s glass-smooth fingertips brush Dean’s hairline. He gets his broad palm all pressed up against Dean’s forehead like he’s gearing up to smite him, but Cas doesn’t touch Dean with the intention to hurt. No, he’s just trying to heal what he can.

The Motrin hasn’t had time to kick in, but Dean doesn’t have to wait for Cas’s Grace to take effect once it seeps into his skin, into his soul. It’s the cool relief of water down his throat after hours of sitting in the Impala without air conditioning, shrinking his headache down to nothing but a distant memory. It helps, but it doesn’t help enough.

Cas’s hand shifts from Dean’s forehead to his jaw, fingers cupping the ridge of his cheekbone. He touches Dean like he’s made of spun glass, and to an angel who could crush a rock into powder without breaking a sweat, he might as well be.  

“I’m sorry,” Cas says, mournful. “I can cure your headache, but there’s nothing I can do to silence Michael.”

Cas knows. Of course he fucking knows. _Everyone_ probably knows—it’s not like it would be in character for an archangel to come quietly—but Dean can pretend.

“Don’t know what you're talking about,” he says, keeping his eyes shut so Cas can’t read the truth in them.

“Don’t lie to me, Dean Winchester. I know the shape of your pain.”

Of course, even with all his epic staring, Cas has never actually needed to look Dean in the eye to know when he’s bullshitting him.

Cas’s thumb touches Dean’s lower lips. Presses down until the nail clicks against Dean’s teeth. Dean’s mouth softens against that thumb in something that’s not quite a kiss, and he says, muffled beneath the touch, “I’ve had worse.”

And he has. An archangel screaming in his head twenty-four/seven can’t compare to the agonies that Alistair and company dished out during Dean’s forty years in the Pit. One little migraine’s got nothing on that.

“I know you have,” says Cas, and he doesn’t mean it the way another person might mean it. He _does_ know, because he was _there_. “But it’s not a question of what you can endure, Dean. Just because you can endure it doesn’t mean you should _have_ to.”

Dean opens his eyes, and they’ve adjusted well enough to the bathroom’s dim interior that he can finally make out the finer details of Cas’s face, the steep outline of his upper lip, the lines stitched into his forehead.

“There wasn’t any other way to stop him, Cas,” Dean says over the din of Michael screaming in his head. “Sounds a hell of a lot like a _have-to_ to me.”

“It’s only a stopgap,” Cas says, packing so much faith into those four words that Dean half believes him. “We’ll think of something else.”

Dean thinks of the slim black book he wedged between his mattress and his box spring. He says, “I need a drink.”

The hand on his face clenches, not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to warn, and Cas grips Dean’s shoulder with his free hand and pushes at him until the backs of his knees hit the base of the toilet. He eases Dean down until he’s parked his ass on the shut lid, and then he crouches at Dean’s feet.

Dean licks his lips reflexively. Even with the shitty lighting, he can see the look on Cas’s face, and that look crossed with the way he’s kneeling like a penitent between Dean's thighs, like Dean’s something worth worshiping, makes his gut heat up despite how very unsexy he currently feels. 

So, being the charmer that he is, Dean says, “You wanna fuck?" 

Cas’s bitable lips compress into a frown. “ _Dean.”_

“Right,” Dean says, and the fire building in his belly gets dowsed with ice water just. Like. That. “I guess that would be pretty fucking weird, huh. Considering.” Sure, getting his brother’s dick in Dean's mouth would be one way to shut Michael up, but Dean seriously can’t afford the therapy.

Cas grips Dean’s thighs, framing them with his thick thumbs and long fingers. “You need to sleep, Dean.”

“Nah." Dean musters up a smile that fools absolutely no one, least of all himself. “M'good." 

“You’re really not,” says Cas, because he’s like that. He’s also right.

“Look." Dean folds his hands over Cas’s for something to do, someone to touch. “I don’t wanna sleep, all right? I’m afraid that Michael—that he’ll Freddie Krueger me or something if I let my guard down.”

“I doubt that he will, or that he can. But I’ll watch over you through the night in case he tries.”

Dean’s face does something embarrassing. “You don’t have to,” he deflects, but the words come out sounding like _p_ _lease_.

“No,” Cas agrees. “But I’d like to. I want to take care of you.”

Dean slumps. One of Cas’s hands leaves Dean’s thigh to wrap around the back of his neck and squeeze, gently. Dean shudders. Leans into the touch, chasing it like a high.

“Okay,” he says. It’s not a permanent fix. Dean knows what the permanent fix is, but he’s not thinking about that. Not tonight.

In Dean’s head, Michael rattles the door of his Cage.

“All right.”


End file.
